by Ana Barrons
“Penny for your thoughts.”
Hannah raised her head and gazed into compassionate hazel eyes. He had seen the monster—the one that couldn’t be locked out of her house at night.
“I’m ashamed of him,” she said. “My whole life I was ashamed of myself, because I wasn’t good enough for my father to love me. I was flawed in some fundamental way. But seeing him today…” She didn’t need to say any more. Dr. John knew exactly what she was talking about.
John wrapped his hand around her wrist. “This had to be one of the most painful days of your life. But if it helped fill a hole in you, maybe it was a good thing.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a pretty deep hole.” She paused. “Do you think this Officer Ronald Geer is still on the police force?”
“I intend to find out.”
“If he wrote down his conversation with my father in his notes, and if my father at least verified that the date of the break-in was the same date Sam Daly had told the police… I mean, if he had an alibi for that date and time, would that be enough for the police to reopen the investigation?”
John hunched forward, his hand still wrapped around her wrist. “If the break-in was early in the morning, chances are my father was at home with us. It would be a matter of getting his wife to corroborate that.” He focused on her wrist, but she heard the anger in his voice. “My mother. Getting my mother to corroborate that. Which would be damn near impossible.”
“Well, if Geer was following up on Daly’s claim, surely he would have spoken with her at the time. It must be in the file.”
“She took off right after he was arrested.” John let go of Hannah and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “With me. The police got squat out of her.”
“She wasn’t there for the trial?” He shook his head, and she decided to drop it. Later she would ask him about his mother, but not now.
John yawned and rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. “I’ll try to contact Geer as soon as we get back to the inn. Maybe we’ll get some answers.” He caught the waitress’s attention and ordered two more coffees and the check, then rested his forearms on the Formica table and looked Hannah in the eye.
“Even if the stalker didn’t kill your mother, if I can make a reasonable case that the same man who followed her is following you, I may be able to convince the FBI to get involved. Then we’d have access to their databases and their expertise, and our chances of finding this guy increase dramatically. As it stands, there’s no one down in Virginia actively searching for him.”
“What if the FBI fires you as soon as we get back?”
He shrugged. “I still have friends in the bureau.”
She fiddled with her spoon, breaking eye contact. “I suppose you’ll be moving back to wherever you came from.” He didn’t answer for so long she finally looked up. He was watching her.
“Is that what you want?” he asked quietly.
She gave a harsh laugh. “Since when does it matter what I want? For all I know you’re married with two kids and dog named Elvis.”
The waitress appeared with the coffee and the check. Neither of them said a word. John handed the woman a credit card and proceeded to dump cream and sugar in his coffee. He took a few sips and then pushed the mug aside and folded his arms across his chest.
“If I were married, my wife would sure be pissed that I’ve been making love to a beautiful woman.”
“Not if you told her you were just using the other woman to get your father out of prison.”
Something flashed across John’s eyes that Hannah couldn’t quite get a hold of. Oh God, did it mean he really was married? In the next second he pushed back his chair and asked if she was ready to leave.
She nodded and stood, feeling more unsettled than she had all day.
John clicked his cell phone shut and stared at it in the dim light. Hannah slept fitfully on the other side of the glass doors, which she had closed without a word as soon as they’d gotten in. It was early, not yet nine o’clock, but they’d both struggled through the day on almost no sleep.
They needed to be rested when they went back to the inn in the morning.
He propped a down pillow against the headboard and sat back on the bed with his eyes closed, still reeling from what he’d just learned. It had been dumb luck, really, that when he’d called the Marblehead Police Department he spoke to a woman who’d been a clerk there for thirty-one years and remembered Officer Ronald Geer.
“Sure, I remember Ronnie,” the woman had told John. “Good-lookin’ boy. Didn’t last long, though.” He asked her why. “Quit the force after they convicted Sam Daly for murdering that woman. I don’t think he believed the guy was guilty. Ended up going to law school.”
John asked if she had any idea what Geer had done after law school.
“Last I heard,” the woman had told him, “he went to work for the FBI.”
He came to her in the middle of the night and snuggled up behind her. When she didn’t protest, he rolled her toward him, wrapped her up tight in his arms, and they fell asleep like that. At some point before dawn, his need for her overpowered his need for sleep, and he began a long, slow seduction that started with him gliding his hand up and down the leg that was thrown over his, slipping it under the hem of her flannel nightgown and caressing her hip, her bottom, her back. Still half-asleep, she began to move against him, but he took his time undoing the tiny white buttons that ran from her neck to her waist, sliding her panties down her thighs and stroking her wet heat while he licked and sucked her nipples. When she cried out, begging him to come inside her, he rolled her under him and plunged inside, the slow seduction giving way to a hard, urgent coupling.
Afterward, they lay wrapped together, sharing soft kisses, while the first tentative rays of sun slipped between the curtains. John had never known the kind of deep-down contentment he felt with Hannah in his arms. He prayed that someday she would understand and forgive his deception.
“John?”
He smiled at her sleepy voice.
“You know what hurt the most? I mean, yesterday.”
He kissed the top of her head. “No. What was it?”
“It was when Avery looked up at my father—her father—and called him Daddy.”
John stroked her hair, his chest aching for her. “Oh, sweetheart.”
“And he called her ‘honey’. I have no memory of him calling me honey or sweetie or anything like that. Even though he’s still a selfish, cold, hard-hearted bastard, at least she can convince herself…that he loves her.” By the end her voice was a harsh whisper.
John lifted her face to his and kissed the sides of her eyes, where a thin stream of tears was winding a path down her cheeks. When she looked at him he said, “It’s never been your fault, you know. Your father is a narcissist. He doesn’t possess the ability to love anyone but himself.”
“I know that,” she whispered.
“He doesn’t,” he repeated softly, and kissed her mouth. “But I do.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ty was dreaming that roofers were pounding in shingles overhead. Bang, bang, bang.
One of them started calling his name, over and over, like it was life or death.
“Ty, you in there? You’re going to be late for school.”
He jerked awake and instantly banged his head. “Fuck!” It took a couple of seconds to remember he’d slept under his bed last night. Last night… Oh, shit.
Philip.
The friggin’ shrine in the bathtub.
He grabbed the carving knife and crawled out from under the bed, relieved to see that the desk chair was still wedged under the door. Maria was still pounding away.
“I’m getting up,” he shouted. “Stop the damn banging.”
“It’s after eight thirty, Ty. Why’d you lock this door?”
“So I can keep you and all the other psychos out of here,” he mumbled. He sat up, yawning, and rubbed his eyes. Christ, he felt like shit. He must’ve doz
ed off sometime after five, because that’s the last time he’d checked his watch. But he was sure as hell going to school today.
He walked on his knees to the window and lifted the shade just enough to see what the day looked like. The sky was overcast, which pleased him. Sunny days annoyed the shit out of him. He cast his gaze downward—and just about jumped out of his skin.
Philip was standing beneath his window, looking up at him with that creepy little smile of his plastered to his ugly mug.
“Shit!” He dropped the shade and scrambled to his feet.
“Ty, you swearin’ in there?”
He rushed to the door and wedged the chair a little more securely under the knob. “Is my father home?”
“No, no, he’s gone. Philip’s all ready to take you.”
Philip was going to drive him to school?
No fucking way.
But he didn’t want to stay home. Christ, no. He needed to talk to John Emerson immediately.
Ty coughed. “I’m feeling really sick, Maria,” he said in his best hoarse voice. “I need some medicine.”
“What medicine?” Her voice dripped with skepticism.
He coughed again and kept it up until he started to gag. “Ugh, I feel so shitty. Can’t you send Philip out to the drug store for something?”
“Like what?”
“How the hell do I know? Some strong cough medicine.”
“Open this door and I take your temperature.”
Damn woman.
“I’ve got the chills so bad. Jesus, I’m freezing.” He put on a huge coughing fit until he heard her say something about sending Philip out for Robitussin.
“Yeah, Robitussin. That’s what I need.”
He was already dressed, so he didn’t need any time to get ready. He stood next to the window, his back to the wall, one finger holding the shade aside just a sliver, enough so he could see whether Philip was still down there. Damn it, he was! Ty couldn’t have been more scared if the guy was looking up at him with a bib around his neck and a fork and knife in his hands.
A few minutes later, though, he saw Maria handing Philip money and saying something. Philip glanced up at Ty’s window quickly, then walked around the side of the house. Just to be sure he actually left, Ty waited until he saw the car Philip always drove head down the driveway. Then he let go of the shade and sagged against the wall, feeling like a death-row prisoner who’d just gotten a reprieve.
He raced down the steps and out the front door before Maria could see him and try to stop him. One of his father’s “bodyguards” was leaning against the porch rail, having a smoke.
“Hey, man,” Ty said. “I need a ride to school quick. I’m real late and I got a big exam.”
The man, Angelo or something, took another drag of his cigarette and stared at Ty blankly. “I don’t take you to school.”
No shit, Einstein.
“I know, I know, but my usual driver left and—oh, man, you’ll be doing me the biggest favor, and my dad’ll be real grateful. I’ll tell him he should give you a raise.” He was ready to go down on his friggin’ knees if that’s what it took, but the guy just stared at him like he couldn’t understand English. “I’m begging you here. Please just drive me to school. It’ll take ten minutes.” It would actually take closer to thirty, but the guy probably couldn’t tell time anyway, so why discourage him?
“Where’s fish face?”
“Maria sent him out, okay? I saw him go. Could you please—?”
“What the hell,” the guy said, flicking his cigarette off the porch. “Let’s go.”
It took them twenty-five minutes to get to school, and Angelo apparently did know how to tell time because he bitched for the last fifteen. Ty just kept telling him they were almost there, and thanked him profusely for doing him such a big favor. By the time he got out of the car, his mouth hurt from so much ass kissing.
He ran from the car up the steps of Grange Hall, through the foyer, into the teachers’ lounge and down the steps to the basement. He grabbed the doorknob to John’s office—but it wouldn’t turn.
“Damn it!” He banged on the door. “John! It’s me, Ty!”
No answer. Shit.
He tried a couple more times but John obviously wasn’t in there, so there was no point in keeping it up. He ran back up the stairs, through the teachers’ lounge—and nearly mowed Larissa down in the foyer.
“Slow down before you kill someone, Ty,” she said.
“Where’s John?”
“He’s out today.”
“Out! He can’t be out. I have to talk to him, like right now.”
“Sorry, honey.” Larissa gave him a once-over. “You don’t look so good. Did you go to sleep last night?”
Ty didn’t have time for this. Panic squeezed his gut. “I’ve been trying his cell phone. Do you have another number for him?”
“Is there somebody else you can talk to? Because I can’t give you his home number, and I don’t know where he is. And what class are you supposed be in?”
Ty squeezed the sides of his head. This was terrible. Well, he had to do something, so he might as well bite the bullet. “I guess I’ll go up and talk to Hannah.”
Larissa shook her head. “No, hon, sorry, but she’s out too. Death in the family.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“She’ll be in tomorrow or the next day.”
“What about John?”
Larissa was so damn easy to read it was ridiculous. She gave a little half smile and then tried to look all serious, like he was a little kid who didn’t know about sex. Now that he thought about it, it made sense. John and Hannah. Yeah. A whole lot more sense than Hannah and his Dad. At least for her.
“I’m not sure when he’ll be back,” Larissa said. “Probably tomorrow.”
“Or the next day, yeah, I get it.”
“Hey, that’s how rumors start. And I don’t have any idea—”
“—where he is, I know.” Ty rubbed his eyes. “Do you think I could go hang out up in Hannah’s office for a little while? ’Cause, like, I’m exhausted and I feel kind of sick.”
Larissa gave him a look. “Yeah, right, Ty. If you’re sick, go home.” Then she reached out and rubbed his hair, like he was a dog or something. “I guess you are tired. Now get to class.”
He left and headed across the lawn. He turned back once to check, but sure enough, Larissa was watching him go, just like Hannah would have. Jeez, nobody trusted him anymore. He reached into his pocket to see if he had any change for the vending machine. A couple of ones and a few dimes and nickels. Somebody had to have some food or money they could lend him, because one thing was for sure—he wasn’t leaving school until John and Hannah got back from wherever the hell they were.
Hannah clicked off her cell phone and took a sip of the Starbucks coffee sitting in the cup holder of the Taurus. Mrs. Farnum had offered to fix them breakfast this morning when they finally made it downstairs at ten fifteen, but they’d declined. Making love again when they woke up had taken a big bite out of their morning. She sighed.
“What’s that big sigh about?” John asked.
She decided to tell him the truth. “I’m such a pushover where you’re concerned. It’s ridiculous.”
“Do you regret making love to me last night? Or should I say, this morning?”
Did she? “I suppose I do. But then again, you’re a good lay, so why not?” His silence told her he wasn’t pleased with her answer. Good.
“Larissa told me Ty came in today desperate to talk to you,” she said. “Looking bad, like he was sick or something. I’m kind of worried about him.”
“Did he give her any idea what it was about?”
“No, but maybe one of us should call the school and talk to him.”
“I’ll try him later,” John said. There was something about his tone that made Hannah suspicious.
“Is there something going on with Ty that I don’t know about?” She watched John’s face carefu
lly. Is he going to lie to me now?
A group of tourists was waiting to cross, and John stopped the car. Turning to his side window, he said, “Yeah. He left me a message on my cell phone. I just haven’t called him back yet.”
“What did he say in the message?”
The tourists had crossed and John drove on. “It was pretty cryptic. Said he’d done something really stupid and he needed to talk to me about it.”
“That was it?”
“Pretty much.”
They drove on in silence until they parked in front of the inn, and then John turned to her. “Whatever Ty did has something to do with you.”
“Me? Seriously?”
He looked down for a moment as though getting his thoughts together. “He said he didn’t mean any harm and he felt like a fool.”
Hannah was stunned. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” She could see by the look on his face that he was holding something back, and it made her furious. “Goddamn it, John. How can you expect me to trust you when you keep things like this from me?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was afraid you’d start thinking he was your stalker, and I know he isn’t.”
“Do you really give me so little credit? You think I can’t do the math and come to the same conclusion?”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
“The right thing for who?”
He didn’t answer.
John walked around to the passenger side and held the door open for her. She brushed past him and up to the front door without another word, or even a look. He didn’t blame her for being upset, but that didn’t make it any easier for him to deal with her rejection.
Eleanor greeted them at the door and led the way to the attic steps. “If I’d ever imagined you’d come back, I would have saved more of her things for you, Hannah,” she said. “I asked your father several times if he wanted anything, but he was so broken up…”
